L483: Introduction to the History of Technology: Steam Power to Modernity
How did steam engines change society? What was it like to live during the Industrial Revolution? In this class, we'll spend four class sessions learning about and discussing the interconnections of technology and society as it developed during the modern era.
Classes will consist of lectures and discussions, so come prepared with thoughts and questions about that week's reading. Feel free to bring a brown bag dinner.
(course not offered at this time)
First Class: Steam Power
(no reading for first class)
Boulton and Watt centrifugal governor
Second Class: The Industrial Revolution
reading:
excerpt from Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
excerpt from Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle
1909 factory workers in New Jersey
Topics for lecture and discussion:• What were the origins of steam power?
• What did steam power allow to be made?
• How did steam power change daily life?
• How did people react to steam power?
Third Class: Lightbulbs and Systems
reading:
Calvin Coolidge, "Presentation of Medal to Thomas A. Edison" (1928)
Edison petition to the Columbian exposition
Ida B. Wells, Preface to The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition (1893)
1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition
Topics for lecture and discussion:• What was the Industrial Revolution? What did it revolutionize?
• How was technology viewed during the Industrial Revolution?
• How did people react to the changes of the Industrial Revolution?
Fourth Class: Modernism and Technology
reading:
F.T. Marinetti, "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism"
Willy Blackmore, "Chicken With Ball Bearings"
Nude Descending a Staircase, Marchel Duchamp (1912)
Topics for lecture and discussion:• Why do we say that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb? What does that mean?
• What do you need to make a lightbulb work?
• Are systems technologies?
Topics for lecture and discussion:• How did artists view technology, and technological changes?
• What does it mean to be modern? To be modernist?
• What influences of modernism can we see today? Of technological systems? Of steam power and the industrial revolution?
• How do we interact with technology today?
Questions? Contact your instructor at slaughter.aimee at gmail dot com.